Your Right to Know

The city’s only drop-in center for homeless youths opened in 2006, and almost every year since
then, its director has fought to keep food on the shelves, clothes on kids’ backs and hope in their
hearts.

Star House is often dangerously close to folding.

But now, and much to director Natasha Slesnick’s happy surprise, the center could receive a big
boost from the state. The amended two-year budget bill passed by the Ohio House and sent to the
Senate includes $665,196 a year for Star House to serve homeless teens and young adults in central
Ohio.

“We’ve been scrambling to keep this open. The kids rely on us,” said Slesnick, an Ohio State
University professor who started the program using federal research money that has since expired.
The state appropriation would be about three times the annual budget Slesnick cobbles together.

The OSU Star House, as the center also is known, operates out of a cramped house on N. 4th
Street that once served as a neighborhood lab for the College of Human Ecology.

Slesnick and program coordinator Jeana Patterson said a big chunk of the state money would be
used to move the program to a better site. “We’ve asked for what we need to make it right for the
kids,” Slesnick said.

Star House is not a shelter but a respite and resource center that offers food, showers and
computer use in addition to help with employment, housing, bus passes and mental-health services.
Staff members work with an average of 25 to 30 young people each day.

“Their mission statement’s pretty understated for how crucial the needs are and how unique their
approach is,” said state Rep. Michael Stinziano, a Columbus Democrat.

Stinziano recently visited Star House to learn about the program. He asked Rep. Cheryl Grossman,
a Republican from Grove City, to work with him. Grossman, the House majority whip, submitted the
amendment that was adopted on April 18.

The state’s budget bill still needs the approval of the Senate and the signature of Gov. John
Kasich. The budget year starts on July 1.

“It’s sad, but I don’t think people who aren’t in that situation even think about youths being
homeless,” Grossman said. “I’m certainly advocating with the members of the Senate for them to
understand how important this is.”

Stinziano said he learned that, until Star House opened, Columbus was the largest metropolitan
area in the nation without a drop-in center for homeless youths.

“I know we have a lot of shelters here, but this population in particular doesn’t always fit
into that model,” he said.

Too old for foster care and too young to fare well in the adult-shelter system, young people in
their late teens and early 20s are among the most underserved of the homeless.

Slesnick said she created a proposal after Star House supporters urged her to seek state help. “
So many kids are coming to us,” she said, and most of them are impoverished, sad and struggling to
stay safe.

Stinziano said he’s hopeful that state help is on the way. “The takeaway is, it’s the right
thing to do.”